An English teacher of mine from high school once told the class that the point of education is largely so we could appreciate life. And there is something to be said for knowing a lot about a subject, because you can truly appreciate it more, you can see and enjoy the nuances. As john Crowley said in “Little, Big”: the further in you go, the bigger it gets.

Snobbery occurs when you forget that things can be enjoyed also on their simple intrinsic level.

Discussion (5) ¬

This comic reminds me of my friend’s experience taking her two little girls to Disney World. Instead of riding rides, posing with characters for pictures, watching musical shows, etc., they spent almost the entire day playing by the fountain just inside the front entrance.

This reminds me of a cartoon that I saw sometime in the ’70s. In the first frame, one man — obviously an art critic — is explaining via a wall-o’-text the artistic significance of an out-of-frame piece of art to another man. The next frame shows another man walking by while the critic is still blabbing away. The third frame shows the third man bending over the “art work” that the critic is obviously extemporizing on and taking a drink. The last frame shows the third man walking away, the critic’s friend looking at him (the critic) with a “WTF???” expression and the critic shrugging with a horribly embarrassed “Who, me?” smile on his face. Wish I could find that again…

@ War Pig: Probably Reader’s Digest. My grandparents had a subscription at that time and there were piles of them in the garage. (My grand father rarely threw any reading material away until he got a big enough stack to send to the local Boy Scout Troop.)